Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There is just enough sting in the ash-plant's kiss, when it catches you on the softer parts of your thigh, your funny bone, or your wrist, to keep you wide awake, and remind you of the good old rule of "grin and bear it;" but the ash-plant leaves no marks which are likely to offend the eyes of squeamish clients or female relations.
Was it not The Sparrow who had sent him the car with the facetious chauffeur to that spot in Monte Carlo? Perhaps the writer was the White Cavalier! During the morning Hugh strolled down the hill and through the woods with Louise. The latter was dressed in a neat country kit, a tweed suit, a suede tam-o'-shanter, and carried a stout ash-plant as a walking-stick.
The first wet day that came brought the Churl of the Townland of Mischance. He rode on a bob-tailed, big-headed, spavined and spotted horse. He carried an ash-plant in his hand to flog the horse and to strike at the dogs that crossed his way. He had blue lips, eyes looking crossways and eyebrows like a furze bush. He had a bag before him filled with boiled pigs' feet.
Mangan looked straight in front of him, as became a mortgagee of delicate feeling, and said with some elaborateness, "No man need be anxious about money whose security is Irish land, nowadays. 'Tis daily appressiating in value." "To every man except the owner!" Dick struck hard with his ash-plant at a tall weed as he spoke, and decapitated it with the grace and dexterity of the old cavalryman.
He was more than satisfied with himself, and, as he walked along, he mowed down with his ash-plant thistles and nettles in sheer joyfulness of heart. His long feud with Bourne would come to a joyful end that night.
This precaution ensures a mark upon the jacket every time the ash-plant hits it; but even this is not always sufficient, for it is quite possible for a true guard to be opposed to a hard cut with a pliant stick, with the result that the attacker's stick whips over and leaves a mark which ought not to be scored, for had the weapons been of steel this could not have happened.
The two grooms were belabouring each other lustily; and Master Potts was exercising his hunting-whip on the broad shoulders of Sparshot, who in return was making him acquainted with the taste of a stout ash-plant. Assailed in the same manner as the squire, and naturally attributing the attack to their nearest neighbours, they waited for no explanation, but fell upon each other.
"Noo, I'm gaein' to gie ye the gran'est thrashin' ye iver dreamed of. Tak' aff yer coat!" The boy obeyed, and stood up in his thin shirt, his face white and set as a statue's. Red Wull seated himself on his haunches close by, his ears pricked, licking his lips, all attention. The little man suppled the great ash-plant in his hands and raised it.
He carried a Sportsman under his arm, a penny and a half-crown jingled in his pocket; and as he walked he lashed the trousers and boot, whose elegance was an echo of the old Regent Street days, with an ash-plant.
The half-crowns now began to descend singly in the pocket, keeping up a protracted jingle, like the notes of a lazy, undecided musical snuff-box. By the time the last had dropped, Mr. Buckram had collected himself sufficiently to resume. Taking the ash-plant away from his mouth, with which he had been barricading his lips, he observed
Word Of The Day